Drake’s Take: New Releases 03.09.10

This week’s Drake’s Take may be a little bit late, but it’s chock full of super-sized goodness. -ed.

Damn you week of March 9 new releases…. why must you have so many noteworthy so as to make me choose just a couple. Because there are so many, I’m profiling more and giving less space to each as a result. There’s a greatest hits release from the newly reunited Pavement; the Danger Mouse/James Mercer collaboration debut Broken Bells; along with new releases from Ted Leo, Liars and a crazy interpretation of Orpheus & Eurydice from Anais Mitchell. Other new releases I would have profiled nearly any other week include ones from Gorillaz, The Besnard Lakes, Frightened Rabbits, Jason Collett, Miles Kurosky (ex-Beulah), White Hinterland, jj, Titus Andronicus, The Morning Benders, The Whigs, Free Energy and the subject of Heavy Metal in Baghdad, Acrassicauda.

While the band of the 1990’s only released five albums and a handful of EPs and never technically had any hits (save “Cut Your Hair,” which was at least a hit in circles I traveled), Quarantine the Past: The Best of Pavement gives the (correct) impression of a much deeper career. You’d be hard pressed to pick a better track list for the band. I”m sure there’s a song or two that some wish were on here, but it’s hard to argue with early cuts like “Box Elder” and b-sides like “Unseen Power Of The Picket Fence”.

It makes sense that Danger Mouse (Brian Burton) and James Mercer (The Shins) hit it off, given their mutual admiration of sixties pop. References abound to The Zombies, Love, Pet Sounds and even famed Italian film composer Ennio Morricone. The two sound comfortable together — perhaps too comfortable.

It may be Ted Leo’s Matador debut, but it’s still the same old brainy-angsty-power-pop-meets-punk sound that he’s been crafting since he began in the mid-nineties. If you’re a fan already, you already know you love it. As an introduction to TL&TP, it’s a fine first impression.

Mitchell created this “folk opera” based on the old Greek myth of Orpheus rescuing Eurydice, bringing it up to modern times. The music and lyrics are fine enough, but throw in the cast, and it moves into the you have to hear it category. Hadestown features Mitchell as Eurydice, Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) as Orpheus, Ani DiFranco as Persephone, Greg Brown as Hades, Ben Knox Miller (The Low Anthem) as Hermes, and the Haden Triplets (Petra, Rachel, and Tanya) as the Fates.

An album from Liars requires a certain length of time to sit in your head before it opens up and lets you in. After taking up residence in Berlin (Drums Not Dead) and Salem (They Were Wrong, So We Drowned), Sisterworld is the product of Los Angeles, albeit, a paranoid and colder version of the city than many might recognize. The band has fine-tuned their tribal and creepy take on the rock genre, but are still light years from mass appeal — something that’s never seemed to be in their interest. Upon first listen, it’d be hard to convince the listener that the album has a ‘catchy’ bone in its body, but after living with it for a month, I can attest that the bones are there. Just have to pick away at the meat for awhile… so only approach with great patience.